Trump's sudden cancellation of the upcoming denuclearization summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is just the latest example of the US president's wildly erratic approach to foreign policy. Trump's "America First" policy really is a "me first" policy, says Noam Chomsky. The "gangster capitalism" promoted by Trump raises the specter of an isolated US hiding in fear but with a fearsome capacity for destruction.

Unified opposition among Democrats and ambivalence among some Republicans over cuts to the nutrition assistance program caused the farm bill to die in the House last week. But the danger is far from over as Republicans seek to pay for their $1.5 trillion tax cut by attacking any programs that help working families, says Rebecca Vallas, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress.

Although the peace movement is not a loud voice at this time in the US, it should be. In this introduction of A Nation Unmade by War, Tom Engelhardt discusses the history of the United States' twenty-first century conflicts and how the country has become increasingly unsettled by the US empire as it continues to assert its military might around the globe.